Working in SG!

For IT people who are considering to work in SG, here are some tips.

Hunting: Post in jobstreet, jobsdb and monster. Check for agent contacts.

Resume: If you're given the job description, tailor-fit your resume to suit the reqts, you have to pass the screening at the very least to earn a phone interview

Interview: they normally hire people outside SG for their technical skills. For those working in pampered environments, unfortunately the bibo skills in managing, leading is not that 'mabenta'. Usually 1-2 rounds, max of 3 rounds would be enough.

General types of IT work:
Project Managers - there are technical PMs and process PMs (usually the PMP-certified). For both, the minimum requirement usually is at least 8 year work experience. PM job here is not the pampered type in Phil, here you managed resources, budget, timelines of a project but remember culture is different - mostly Indians, Filipinos, locals, etc. PMs I know here are usually 'puno sa konsumisyon', mahirap pasunurin mga tao lalo na ang Indians. :)
Business Analysts - Minimum requirement again is at least 5 year exposure to a specific industry. Most mabenta are: banking, insurance.
Quality Assurance - Process QA, testing QA, documentation. You have to know several in-demand languages, most common of which are SAP, Peoplesoft, Informatica, Cognos, Datastage, Java, etc. Unix and Oracle have become baselines.
Developers - programmers. Same as the statement in QA.
Others - sometimes you get some systems analyst roles, support roles, but they are not as common as the 4 ones stated above.

Job types:
Contractual - 80% of the time. Check the terms if you terminate a contract. Usual bond is 1 year and if you fail to finish it, sometimes they'll require you to be working for free for 1 month or 2 months (notice period). And oh, we're talking KKs pesos going to charity here.
Permanent - 20% of the time. But they say you can haggle more in a contractual position (however you have to take the risks that they can also terminate you once a project finishes, by then you will only have 14 days to find a replacement job, or else you have to go back to Manila)

Pay:
Normally you'd be given an offer based on your years of working experience.
Average monthly expense is roughly 1500SGD (kasama na gimiks yun 1.5K, kung ndi ka magastos 1 or 1.2K should be fine), so dont go lower than 2500SGD at the very least. Usual range is 3K-4KSGD. You can also go as high as 5.5K (extremes), depends probably on your skillset and your bargaining skills.
Tax - in my case is initially 15%. After 6 months it will go down to 7%. Most of the time you have to file your own tax. So you get the whole amount every month.

Watchouts and Horror Stories:
Almost no training and orientation whatsoever. Remember, they hire you for your skills so they expect you to know everything (which is kinda crazy.). In my case, I was told on Day2 to QA a project that will be released on Day4 to user environment! Hehe buti na lng may tumulong sa kin, dasalan na lng ito. :) So far I only encountered this one.

Below are horror stories shared by some friends:
You actually have to have an employment pass to be able to work in SG, and this is tied to your employer. If you plan to quit your present job but your employer or sometimes your agent (contractual) does not want you to quit, iipitin ka nila. If they wont release your EP, there's no way you can work for another company because you have to surrender your old EP to process a new EP. (But there's a new PEP coming up meaning Personal employment pass, which is not tied to a certain employer anymore).

They say people here are generally workoholic, uptight, unforgiving. Different races have different work habits. Even if you've tried working with different races for multinationals in Phil, somehow there's still a huge difference.
A friend related sort of pinapahiya ng boss (Indian/local) everytime whether he does or does not commit a mistake. He was told to resign dahil they dont need his service. Another one related pinapagalitan na cya during his first week, even for small reasons like coming late to office.

Another one told me he dislikes attending meetings, para bang parati cyang sinusubukan kung may alam cya sa ginagawa nya.

One said the Indians wont listen to instructions given out, they sabotage your plans.

Anyway, still look at the bright side. 3 things probably to look forward to.
Saving is easier.
Learn a lot in life and work
Work-life balance. In my case, I arrive 930am, lunch break 11:30-2pm (they have long lunch breaks), then leave before 7pm. Latest probably is 730pm.